Hand-held devices, notably pneumatic and power tools, are often subject to damaging impact when the devices are dropped or forcibly contact hard surfaces. It is known in the art to provide a rubber strip around the housings of these tools to permit them to be dropped with minimal damage.
Electronic instruments are generally more fragile than tools and therefore are more easily damaged when dropped. U.S. Pat. No. 4,469,765 describes a portable battery-powered device where the battery housing is composed of two pieces: a rigid interconnecting structure which mechanically and electrically interconnects the battery pack to an electronic device, and a resilient shock-absorbing material injection molded around the interconnecting structure.
A drawback of this system is its complexity; the housing is expensive to manufacture. When the batteries are discharged or, if rechargeable, no longer are able to store a charge, the entire battery pack is discarded. Resilient materials are generally more expensive than rigid materials (for example, most plastics). Thus, the materials cost of this battery pack is increased because almost the entire battery housing is comprised of this resilient material.
Therefore, there is a need to provide shock-absorbing properties to hand-held electronic devices which overcome these and other problems. There is a need to provide a reusable shock-absorbing member for a battery pack which is inexpensive to produce.